


the hanged man

by klismaphilia



Category: Original Work, Taciturn Truths (Hainthe Lapin)
Genre: Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Emotional Manipulation, Heavy Angst, Hospitalization, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Psychopathology & Sociopathy, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-14
Updated: 2016-12-14
Packaged: 2018-09-08 15:57:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8851096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/klismaphilia/pseuds/klismaphilia
Summary: Anakin has a death wish; Zeph reminisces over what could've been and yet never was.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intoxicated_by_our_lies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intoxicated_by_our_lies/gifts).



> I'm taking requests on tumblr! Send em in [@klismapositive](http://www.klismapositive.tumblr.com)

For all the years that Zeph had known Kinny Terzic, he’d rarely ever heard the words ‘ _ I’m sorry’ _ pass his lips. Anakin was, for all intents and purposes, an endless void of perpetual chaos, someone who didn’t understand what it  _ meant _ to be a human, to feel emotions in a manner befitting of a person in a society that thrived on feelings and thoughts. He was a product, through and through, of disdain, loathing and immorality.

And that is why he’s broken.

In this moment, Zeph reminisces; he watches Anakin, prostrate atop the bland, white sheets of a hospital bed, as his chest heaves for breaths that never truly settle, tattoo-covered arms haphazardly splayed across the pillow beside him. In this lighting, his face has taken on a softness; subtle, childlike innocence, free of the guile that so commonly surrounds him in waking moments. 

It reminds him, suddenly, of a head tucked into his slightly-broader chest, ivory skin against his own caramel color, tufts of red hair tickling the underside of his chin as Anakin’s stick-skinny arms had twisted around his neck in something too mocking to be a lover’s embrace, but too intimate to be anything else.

_ “‘m a fuck-up, Zeph,” _ he’d muttered, and those grey eyes had flickered with the wreckage of a too-long high, glassy and volatile. _ “S-so fucked in th’head, man… ‘s easier f’me to die, now, y’know? ‘S easier.” _

_ “Kinny--” _ Zeph had hissed, and tugged him closer, pressed him back down onto his bed and ran a hand through his greasy hair as the younger man shuddered, curled in on himself with a muted laugh.

_ “Don’t bother…” _

_ “Fuckin’ hell, I’ll bother ‘f I g’ddamn want, man.” _ He continued, gripping one of those jaundiced wrists, the bruising of track marks worn into the flesh as Anakin keened, smile devilish and  _ mad. “This ain’t you.” _

_ “How’d you know?” _

_ “Because I fuckin’ _ love you. _ ” _

That had been the last time they’d fought, for years-- the last time, because Anakin plugged his emotions in and stuffed the empty holes with drugs, morphine and heroin and whatever goddamn liquid death he could find to clear his melancholy. He’d be calmer, after, when he pulled Zeph against him and teasingly slotted their hips together, grinding against the other’s tattooed thigh and tugging at his nappy black hair with a hiss of amusement.

Anakin didn’t like talking when they fucked; Zeph understood, really, though he couldn’t say why. Perhaps they both knew that if words slipped the space between them, it might make it real; might break the facade of art and drugs and drive-bys they’d fallen into, or the laissez-faire way Zeph just  _ let them,  _ let Anakin throw himself all over random people, let him burn himself out  _ just the way he’d always been expected to. _

He’d always been rough, really, clawing deep gashes into the flesh of Zeph’s back, spasming at each rough movement his best friend made against him. Anakin was the type to throw around sexual favors the same way he did words, the type to arch and hiss and hook his legs across solid hips, dig teeth into Zeph’s shoulder and bite until he bled. After, they never even looked at each other; Kinny would roll away, tuck his arms around himself with his back to Zeph, occasionally fish out a cigarette and expectantly hold it out toward Zeph to light.

Zeph said he didn’t care what he did, but at the end of the day, he cared too fucking much. And it was foolish, to think that-- that going to  _ college,  _ meeting Nanashi, taking care of  _ Uhura,  _ might actually change the infection that had been rooted in Anakin from the very beginning. He had a death wish, and everyone  _ knew  _ he had a fucking death wish, and now he was going to spend years rotting away in a fucking jail cell because of it.

_ Sociopath,  _ they’d said, and Zeph told him,  _ no, you ain’t a sociopath, Kinny, you jus’ got some problems. Nobody blames ya. This place-- West Side, man, it fucks us all over, f’real. You’s better than this. _

He doesn’t want to admit he might’ve been wrong.

Anakin’s eyelashes flutter, and he blinks, dreary, clearing the last dredges of unconsciousness from his eyes before smiling at Zeph and reaching a hand out.

“Hey, Reese.”

Zeph hates the way his chest pulses, hopeful.

He hates that his first instinct is to hold that ink-stained hand and squeeze it tight with a little wink of reassurance.

He hates that he loves Anakin, and that he’ll probably never stop.

“Hey, Kinny.”


End file.
